Statement by President of the Government following meeting of Heads of State and Government of European members of G-20

Berlin

Good day to you all. Thank you very much, Angela.

I wanted to start this speech by thanking Ms Merkel for having called it.

As you know, we are preparing the Summit of G-20 leaders that will take place in Hamburg next week. Spain supports the agenda presented by Germany and I just wanted, within that agenda, to refer to five issues that we have also addressed here today and which seem important to me. I will make a brief mention of each of all five of these issues.

Firstly, economic growth and job creation must continue to be the main goals in Europe, and they obviously are for Spain. Spain has been growing at a rate in excess of 3% over the last three years and is creating some 500,000 jobs each year. The goal is to continue at this rate for the next three years. We have seen the positive inflation and growth figures published today by the Bank of Spain. This has all been possible thanks to the reforms and the recovery has also been firmly backed by the foreign trade sector.

That is why we support free trade, we want to see clarity in relation to protectionism, we also support multilateralism and we call for the rulebook to be the same for everyone and for this to be respected.

Thirdly, I want to mention the issue of climate change, on which I believe that we should send out a clear and resounding message in support of the decisions and agreements adopted back at the Paris Summit.

Fourthly, I want to mention terrorism. This is one of the problems which most concern the people of Europe as a whole, and rightly so, and I believe that we must work in three directions: first, on improving international cooperation, which is being done, and this is very positive; second, on fighting terrorism on the Internet tooth and nail, and third, on countering the financing of terrorism and money laundering. I would also like - this was contained in the Conclusions of the last European Council - to stress the very important role that victims of terrorism can play in the fight against terrorism.

Finally, a brief comment on the subject of immigration. Our position is well-known: we believe that this battle must always be waged at source; we believe that we must help countries to improve their development and we must be unwavering in fighting the mafias. We appreciate what is happening in Italy, we express our solidarity with its government and with the people of Italy and we will obviously provide all our support in avoiding the dramatic situations along with others unfolding there.